Fast and Furious was not botched

I’ve officially lost count of the number of times I’ve heard or read a media source assert that Operation Fast and Furious was botched. It wasn’t. It did exactly what it was designed to do: put American guns in the hands of criminals so they could terrorize and kill innocent Mexicans with them and get caught doing so. When they were caught, the guns would be traced back to American gun shops “proving” that smuggling was a huge problem that had to be solved by any means necessary.

Were it not for the whistleblowers, the Obama administration would have built a gun control propaganda campaign upon a pile of dead bodies–exactly has they had planned to. Every single dead body was the result of things going right in the operation, not wrong.

So, why is the media continuing to insist that it was botched? Simple. It allows them to keep the truth of the Republican investigation out of the narrative. They can frame the investigation as looking into a mistake, like so many others. In reality, it’s an investigation looking at the administration’s clear intent to sacrifice innocent and unwilling lives for its own political agenda.

When you hear the word botched, know that it’s an attempt to weave a tale of incompetence when the real story is one of evil.

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http://www.twitter.com/AntonSirius Anton Sirius

There are two major, unproven assertions in this post that completely undermine your point. No one has yet established that the goal of the program was to trace guns “back to American gun shops “proving” that smuggling was a huge problem that had to be solved by any means necessary.” The sting operation appears to have been targeted at criminals who engaged in gun smuggling as a sideline to their other enterprises – not legal gun owners – and no one’s come up with anything that hints otherwise. It was the border equivalent of trying to bring Capone down with tax evasion charges. And all the available evidence points to this being a local ATF operation and not something orchestrated from the White House.

And before you say it… the documents Issa’s not getting to fuel his Congressional vendetta aren’t even relevant to the origins of the program, and couldn’t prove the latter point no matter what they contained.

I appreciate that you really, really want to believe that Obama and Holder hate the Second Amendment with all their hearts and want to kill it. Unfortunately, Fast and Furious offers you no proof whatsoever that this is true.

http://pith-n-vinegar.blogspot.com/ Quincy

Anton,

Such a boatload of ignorance in such a tidy package… where to start?

No one has yet established that the goal of the program was to trace guns “back to American gun shops “proving” that smuggling was a huge problem that had to be solved by any means necessary.” The sting operation appears to have been targeted at criminals who engaged in gun smuggling as a sideline to their other enterprises – not legal gun owners – and no one’s come up with anything that hints otherwise.

Explain to me why, exactly, the ATF would stop tracking these guns when they got across the border? If their goal was to get evidence on the border smugglers, why not stop the damn guns before they got used?

That’s NOT what happened. They let them go. Here’s whistleblower John Dodson’s description of what they did: “we took notes, we recorded observations, we tracked movements of these individuals for a short time after their purchases, but nothing more. Knowing all the while, just days after these purchases, the guns that we saw these individuals buy would begin turning up at crime scenes in the United States and Mexico, we still did nothing.” (http://townhall.com/columnists/katiepavlich/2011/11/10/fast_and_furious_was_not_botched/page/full/)

In addition, whistleblowers described e-mails internal to the ATF that described that guns showing up a crime scenes was proof the operation was working. Why, if this operation were to catch border smugglers, would this matter?

Just think about it for a minute, how many plausible explanations are there for deliberately NOT tracking the guns into Mexico, NOT preventing their use in crimes, and citing their appearance at crime scenes as a success?

And all the available evidence points to this being a local ATF operation and not something orchestrated from the White House.

Really? You missed a piece of evidence: “On May 3, 2011, Holder told a Judiciary Committee hearing, “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”

At the very least, Holder knew and could have stopped it. More likely, the frequent memos are evidence of coordination with Holder on the operation. But without further investigation, we don’t know.

And before you say it… the documents Issa’s not getting to fuel his Congressional vendetta aren’t even relevant to the origins of the program, and couldn’t prove the latter point no matter what they contained.

Huge assertion. Where’s your proof?

I appreciate that you really, really want to believe that Obama and Holder hate the Second Amendment with all their hearts and want to kill it. Unfortunately, Fast and Furious offers you no proof whatsoever that this is true.

Actually, I’m not a Second Amendment zealot. It’s the callous willingness to sacrifice innocent lives that has me outraged. Hundreds of Mexicans are dead because of this operation. They’re DEAD. They’re dead because this operation planned to have the guns turn up at crime scenes. No matter what your political persuasion, this should be outrageous.

But the media, with the exception of Sheryl Attkisson, is steadfastly dedicated to making this go away. At first they ignored it, then when Issa started digging they began putting together the narrative that it was a botched local operation. They use the word botched to imply that the deaths were accidents that wouldn’t have happened if things had gone according to plan. That’s a lie.

The same media that thought that a break-in at the Watergate hotel was worth bringing down Nixon over is covering up an operation that caused hundreds of deaths because it might make Obama look bad. And you’re playing right into their hand by repeating their lies.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com Doug Mataconis

There simply isn’t any evidence to support this accusation. All that exists, based on the numerous pieces I’ve read putting forward this theory from writers like Katie Pavlich, are suppositions of motives with no evidence to support said suppositions.

Don’t ascribe to malevolence that which can easily be explained by incompetence.

http://www.thelibertypapers.org/ Stephen Littau

I’m in the “I don’t know” if F&F was botched or if it was a conspiracy to provide political cover for stricter gun control policy camp. At this point, I would not put anything past this criminal administration and would not be at all surprised if this turned out to be true. The American people (and the Mexican people for that matter) deserve a full investigation into what happened here by an independent special prosecutor. And for those who think that I’m just out to get Obama/Holder, I would say that this investigation should include the Bush administration (i.e. Operation Wide Receiver) and let the chips fall where they may.

Whether or not this was a conspiracy or a botched operation, I think we can all agree that it was reckless and those responsible should be held accountable (and by accountable, I mean doing hard time for any criminal activity and the victims of this policy should receive an official apology along with millions of dollars).

http://thelibertypapers.org Quincy

Three points:

1. There is zero evidence that I’ve seen that contradicts the accounts of the whistleblowers with regards to the plan of Fast and Furious being to put American guns in the hands of criminals in Mexico so they could be discovered at crime scenes. Until that evidence is presented, I see no factual basis to claim that Fast and Furious was botched.

2. I’m not asserting that the people who put this together wanted to kill Mexicans. I’m asserting that they balanced whatever goal this was meant to achieve against the cost in human lives and chose to do it anyway. That’s evil, even if it’s the result of oversight.

3. I’m concluding, based on the whistleblowers’ accounts, that the plan was a propaganda set up. I can’t think of any other reason to hold up the finding of American guns at Mexican crime scenes as a success. If there is an alternate theory, I’d love to hear it.

Unpleasant Truth

It wasn’t a botched anything. It was a successful gun-smuggling operation being run by crooked A.T.F. agents. It is being covered up and stonewalled by Holder (and now Obama with executive privilege) because it is CORRUPTION, not incompetence. The sheer mechanics of how this “sting” was supposed to work are preposterous on their face. Nobody is dumb enough to approve of something like this and think it would work. No, this was very clearly a gun-running operation done by crooked A.T.F. agents and when someone blew the whistle on them they, and their boss Eric Holder who certainly appears to have been in on it and profiting from it, hid behind the laughably ridiculous cover story of it being a “botched sting operation”. Grow a backbone America. Have guts enough to face unpleasant truths OK? It builds character.

It is mind boggling that this painfully obvious answer is such a mystery to so many Americans. Have you all been eating lead paint chips? Is there something in the water perhaps? I feel like I’m in a nation of 5-year-olds.

DoctorT

@Unpleasant Truth

I agree. Five-year-olds typically have two mental flaws: readiness to believe anything said by authority figures and magical thinking. Unfortunately, far too many “adults” never outgrow those flaws. They believe government officials and news reporters despite evidence that both groups repeatedly have lied. They believe that paternalistic, nanny-state governments will solve their problems despite evidence that governments rarely fixes them and almost always creates worse problems.

The Fast & Furious program shows how government employees exhibit the magical thinking of five-year-olds. Only such thinking could explain their belief that the program would help reduce criminal use of guns in the USA.

http://www.thelibertypapers.org/ Stephen Littau

Quincy: I agree fully on your first 2 points. I’m not as certain as you on the 3rd point but I do think it’s entirely plausible.

http://pith-n-vinegar.blogspot.com/ Quincy

Only such thinking could explain their belief that the program would help reduce criminal use of guns in the USA.

I think that’s giving the people who put this together too much credit. While gunwalking is an inherently irresponsible tactic, it’s one they’ve employed in the past to try and ferret out gun smuggling operations. However, to do so would require that they keep tracking the guns.

In this case, the leaders of the operation made the deliberate decision to lose the guns so they could be found at crime scenes. There is no possible way that they could have believed that this would allow them to stop smuggling. They simply weren’t trying to.

The million dollar questions here are what they thought they were doing and who they were doing it for.